Friday, April 8, 2011

Recap

4 mutants
3 primadonnas
2 organ insufficiencies
1 tired mama

One of my dear friends just had her second baby. Or as we call it in our house, back up #1. I remember when I had my second baby. We had no money, my husband was never home, and all I wanted was to sleep through the night. 10 years later, we have money- but it's all spoken for, my husband is rarely home and for the love of all that is holy- is 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep too much to ask for? 7 would be fabulous. I would settle for 6 and this week- would probably feel refreshed with 5. Let's face it- work quality suffers with inadequate rest time, and as anyone can tell from the rag a muffins running around my abode- quality has indeed suffered.

When we used the slogan "we put the fun in dysfunctional" - I'm pretty sure it was in reference to the family dynamic- not serial organ malfunctions. Yet here I am with one kid who has no adrenals, another whose pancreas has decided to abandon ship, one who thinks she is the family pet and one who thinks if she pretends to be in another family long enough, they might actually keep her. Care and feeding of said creatures is a challenge on good days. Now it has taken on a life of its own.

I hate diets. I'm not a fan of working out. I figure all these added pounds will give me a leg up someday if I have to go through chemo. I haven't dieted since I was 18. I have tried more diets than I care to admit, and there is something seriously wrong with the fact that they were all before I was 18. My dad was a big man. From what I can tell, I got my athletic side from him. And my love of food. I know what reasonable portions are- but really they are just so reasonably small. I like to cook. I'm not a great baker- baking requires a precision that I am not comfortable with. When I cook- it's all about how it tastes-I'm a pinch of this and a dash of that kinda girl. I hate recipe exchanges- I actually made one up once. A friend called and said you didn't really mean so much of this did you? Sure I did- if it doesn't taste right- add a whole bunch more of all the other ingredients and it will be just fine. Now I just pass along whatever Betty Crocker recommends. I'm one step away from being poetic and submitting recipes for serenity but I seem to be lacking some key ingredients.

One of the approaches to type 1 diabetes management is carb counting. In theory, it is pretty straight forward. Except for the fact that IT IS KILLING ME. They even gave us the uber scale of justice. It has more functions than my phone and I'm pretty much afraid to touch anything but the power and zero buttons. Thank god I have a scientific degree of some sort or I may not have known what the zero button was for. We also got the complete set of measuring utensiles. The darn things could have their own zip code. Really if you have a 1 cup and a 1/2 cup- do you need a 1 and 1/2 cup and a 2 cup measurer? I do like that the little spoons actually have dash and pinch measurements on them- so now I can say I'm a 1/8 teaspoon and a 1/16 teaspoon kinda girl.

So the first couple days of diabetic cooking, I tried to familiarize myself with the calorie king carb counting handbook. Basically if we were eating anything processed, packaged or from a well known restaurant- it is easy to find in the book. Well newsflash kiddies- if it's processed or packaged- it's got the carb count on it. And that's not the stuff we really need to be eating anyhow. It's the tricky stuff I need help with- like cocktail sauce that comes with the Costco shrimp(24g per 1/4 cup btw) or our neighbor's birthday cake(guess and guess again). I also learned how unlikely it is for eateries to actually have nutritional information on hand. Mcdonald's has the carbs written right there on the wrappers. I was surprised how hard it is to obtain carb counts considering how big the low carb/no carb diets were a few years ago. I am starting to get why all those health food nuts are so ornery. It's a pain.

So night 1, I make meatloaf, mashed potaotes and carrots. A fairly high carb meal- but the plan is to match the insulin dose to the actual carbs moreso than restrict diet. That is what we call management. SO I measure. I weigh. I calculate. I go online and double check the nutrition facts.The kids want to know why I have tears, I blame the onions. This is soo not me. I can do this. Except 2 hours later, and we take lil man's sugars and they are high. Grrrr. What's the point of spending all the time measuring and being precise when the result is anything but? Then tonight was our neighbor's birthday and we were invited over for cake and ice cream. I tried to balance that with a lighter dinner of shrimp and salad. The cake and ice cream comes out to be like a days worth of carbs. But the point is to not restrict him so he doesn't feel the need to sneak later. He is all impressed that his dinner is under a unit's worth of carbs and I inform him that that is good because the cake is going to knock it out of the water. He starts laughing hysterically. Sleep is a beautiful thing- if you get it- please cherish it- if you don't need it- please give me your number, I have 4 mutants I'd like to introduce you to. Somewhere between a fish out of water and out of the ballpark morphs our new catchphrase.

Needless to say I was very surprised 2 hours post cake when Phillip came to me and said he was feeling low. That's not what I was thinking when I thought he was going to knock it out of the water. But he was low and got a snack. He angled for more cake and ice cream- but settled for goldfish. I'm not entirely sure but I think there is irony somewhere in all of this. That or I am actually capable of counting carbs. Nah.

1 comment:

Amy
said...

I cannot even imagine... As a "serial rounder" myself, just talking about this level of precision made my palms clammy. It seems daunting to me, but then again, so did figuring out Lily's meds not soo long ago. Hang in there, friend! Praying for a full night's rest for you soon and often. Love you guys.